Arnold Lobel, Author-Illustrator

By HILARY STOUT

Published: December 6, 1987

Arnold Lobel, an award-winning children's book author and illustrator, died of cardiac arrest Friday at Doctors Hospital in Manhattan. He was 54 years old and lived in Manhattan.

In his 26-year career, Mr. Lobel illustrated nearly 100 children's books and wrote the stories of many of them as well.

Among his most popular works was a series of four books about a frog and a toad, best friends who shared many adventures. ''Frog and Toad Together,'' the second in the series, was a 1973 Newberry Honor book, one of the most prestigious distinctions in children's literature.

Mr. Lobel was a serious, hard-working artist who loved children and animals. His books have been translated into dozens of foreign languages. Distinguished Book Award

In 1981, the American Library Association awarded Mr. Lobel the Caldecott Medal for most distinguished picture book of the year for ''Fables,'' a collection of animal tales, which he wrote and illustrated, about such characters as a kangaroo that throws spitballs and a camel that wants to become a ballet dancer.

Drawing came more naturally to Mr. Lobel than writing did.

''Writing is very painful to me,'' he said in an interview in 1979. ''I have to force myself not to think in visual terms, because I know if I start to think of pictures, I'll cop out on the text.''

Arnold Stark Lobel was born on May 22, 1933, in Los Angeles and grew up in Schenectady, N.Y.

He was a small, sickly child who was often bullied at school, but who made up for his physical shortcomings by enthralling his classmates with stories he invented. Story of Salmon

In 1955, Mr. Lobel graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn with a degree in fine arts. That same year, he married Anita Kempler, another art student at Pratt, with whom he collaborated on several books in the ensuing years.

In 1961, he illustrated his first book, ''Red Tag Comes Back,'' a story about salmon swimming upstream to lay eggs.

The next year he published ''A Zoo for Mister Muster,'' about the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn, which he wrote as well as illustrated.

Two works ''Dinosaurs,'' which he illustrated, and ''Turn Around Wind,'' which he wrote and illustrated, are scheduled to be published soon.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Lobel is survived by a daughter, Adrianne, a set designer who lives in Manhattan; a son, Adam, a musician who lives in Boston; and his mother, Lucille Bird, who lives in Florida.